1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile communications, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for activating non-SMS devices to send alerts to, and/or initiate actions on, the non-SMS devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Server systems provide data access and interactive capability for mobile employee operations within an enterprise. Mobile employees can access server resources over the web, when connected, for such resources as email.
When new email has arrived at the enterprise server for distribution to a particular mobile employee (or group of mobile employees), the mobile employee(s) needs to be notified of the arrival of the mail, so that they know to connect to the enterprise server to download and read the email. The server can send such an alert using a Server Initated Action, or SIA. SIA's can be delivered to a mobile employee using SMS (Short Message Service) enabled devices such as cell phones. Using such systems, an SMS message is sent to the cell phone, thereby “waking up” the phone and allowing delivery of the SIA in the form of an alert message indicating the receipt of email. The user then takes action to connect to the enterprise server to download and read the email.
Mobile phones can be awakened as described above because all mobile phones have a very low power way to “listen” to a signaling channel, known as the “SS& signaling channel”. It is on this channel that they are signaled when a call is incoming. The phone then initiates a high-power call setup with the nearest mobile tower and the call begins. As mobile telephony systems developed, the industry realized that the SS7 signaling channel could also be used for data, allowing data to be “pushed” to mobile telephones over the SS7 signaling channel. A desirable feature of this method of delivering data to a mobile telephone was that the phone was in a low-power mode but was still able to receive the information.
For IP networks, i.e., data networks, there is no such thing as an SS7 signaling channel. Signaling is performed in a “media access specific” manner, that is, it varies with the special characteristics of the electrical or optical transmission media being used for the transmission. There is no low-level protocol available to programmers via which a device can “listen” on its network interface for commands. Therefore, in virtually all wide area IP networks (including wireless IP networks) there is no low-power method to “emulate” the signaling ability of an SS7 signaling channel. Thus, there is no universal way for a service to contact a mobile device over a wide area IP network.
Since most mobile devices are enabled with wireless connectivity, one option is to have the mobile device connect wirelessly and poll the server for SIA's; however, new infrastructure to poll the server and allow the server to know the location of the device would have to be created, and one or more applications would have to be installed on the mobile device to monitor for the SIAs. Also, there are charges associated with having the mobile device connect wirelessly.
Accordingly, there is need for a simple method and system for enabling receipt of SIA's on a non-SMS-enabled device using existing infrastructure, and without incurring any substantial cost in connection with the receipt of the SIA's.